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didn’t
use protection.”
    “Shit.” Keegan’s already sour stomach went
septic. He moved to stand beside her.
    Corlis brushed at her face and blinked as if
surprised to see her fingers were dry.
    Keegan caught her wrist. “I’ll reassign him,”
he said. “Get Nick in here with us. He can take the next flight
out, be here in less than a day.”
    She jerked her arm back. “No!”
    “Fallon is broken. That time in Peru did
something to his head.”
    “That may be, but Padraic is mine.”
    His eyes felt like sandpaper. “God,
Corlis—get a grip. If we can't fix this, Connor will die. We have
to work together.”
    “I can work with Padraic.”
    “I hope you can,” said Keegan. He looked at
Jen, still sleeping like his life hadn’t just taken a huge turn for
the worse. “Let’s get her upstairs.”
    ****
    Corlis leaned in a corner near one of the
front windows watching rain spatter the glass in thick, syrup-like
drops. If the Aina were out in the woods, they were idiots. She
needed to sleep, but thanks to Papa Stalling, they’d flown from
Hong Kong to Hawaii in a jet so luxurious she couldn’t sit down
without worrying she’d smudge the butternut leather.
    With their Seattle office out in the field,
DalCon was short-staffed, which made Stalling’s offer a studied
insult. He was playing them with the chance to ransom Connor. He
knew a full frontal would destroy them.
    Corlis padded down the hallway to the
kitchen. There was a pot on the stove. Empty. A solitary plate in
the drainer. One fork. One spoon. And two cups on the counter. She
picked them up, curious. The heavy white mug was stenciled with the
Pele Project logo, obviously a misappropriation. The other was
bright yellow with chunky red print declaring it the property of
Puna Fire and Rescue.
    She sniffed it. Coffee. The other held diet
Coke.
    A man, then.
    She rinsed them out and put them in the
drainer beside the plate. It was obvious Guinevere lived by
herself, equally obvious she’d entertained recently.
    Corlis turned her collar up and went back to
the main room. Maybe Keegan would get some sleep. He was wound as
tight as an addict in withdrawal and there’d been a look in his
eyes that Corlis wouldn’t soon forget.
    Guinevere Stalling was nothing like her
picture. In person she was all lush and curvy like a Botticelli
done by Rueben. Who’d have guessed Keegan went for antique plush?
Not that he was any kind of prize. Mr. Goddamned Average.
    A noise at the front door sent her to the
foot of the stairs. Fallon stood on the other side of the spy-hole,
head down. The rain had slowed, but it was still hard enough to
plaster the thick fall of black hair to his nape.
    She opened the door and he shouldered past
her, bringing the wild-ozone scent of the storm in with him.
    “Padraic?”
    “Three hours,” he said, not looking at her.
“Fucking wake me.”
    ****
    Jen squirmed. Her sheets clung to her with
the obsessive grip of a truly paranoid neat-freak, and that was the
last time she’d let her cousin, Mac, demonstrate hospital corners
on her bed. Tidy lessons? He was so dead. She braced herself,
rolled to the side and fell from the bed in a rushing avalanche of
blankets. The edge of her pillow brought down her prized Tiffany
and iridescent dragonflies flew everywhere.
    Keegan flipped on the light. “Don’t
move.”
    Keegan was real?
    He tossed a floor cushion to her and scooped
the wastebasket from under her desk. “Why can’t you have a cheap
lamp like everyone else? Stand on that while I clean this up.” He
scooped the lamp into her wastebasket and swore, shaking glass from
his palm.
    “It’s Tiffany," she said, staring at his
hand.
    “Stay on that cushion. Don't move.”
    Blood dripped between his fingers, spattering
the pale flannel sheets. Suddenly, her head was floating a good ten
feet above her body. She hadn’t had a flashback in years. Hadn’t,
didn’t...couldn’t stop crying.
    There was blood everywhere. Her mother